No iPhone Tethering For iPad

With AT&T recently shaking up its iPhone data plans and announcing an upcoming tethering option, many iPad/iPhone owners may be wondering if it’ll be possible to share your iPhone’s data connection with your iPad.

It won’t.

An AT&T rep told TechFlash that tethering wouldn’t work because the iPad doesn’t have any USB ports. Its Bluetooth connection is apparently capable of tethering but the ability to do so has been disabled.

This is likely for a variety of reasons, none of which are particularly consumer-friendly–Apple wants people to consider buying 3G iPads, AT&T likes the idea of people paying twice for data connectivity, and so on.

It’s no stretch to imagine that some enterprising individuals will figure out a way around this limitation and perhaps a future software update from Apple will turn on the Bluetooth stack that allows tethering.

Of course, one of the easiest ways around all this would be an app that turns your iPhone into a Wi-Fi hotspot. If you’ve jailbroken your iPhone there’s an app called MyWi that does just that. With legal tethering now on the way, it’ll be interesting to see if non-jailbroken iPhones will enjoy the same luxury.